


and I'll be your goal, to have and to hold

by anbethmarie



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, but I felt like writing it so here comes, i will pick them up eventually!, ok this is pretty random and probably makes little sense, please hang in there, to all the lovely people waiting for updates of my other stories:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21989665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anbethmarie/pseuds/anbethmarie
Summary: Four months ago, Gilbert left for Toronto without meeting Diana on the train and Anne never saw Winifred before the latter left Charlottetown.For four months, she believed him married to another and he believed her indifferent towards him.Now, they're both home for Christmas, and bound to find out the truth. Whatever that may be.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 242
Kudos: 918





	1. these are the hands of fate

It was late afternoon on Christmas Eve.

As she wandered slowly through the silent, snow-covered forest, Anne Shirley thought she’d never really appreciated how beautiful silence was until her move to the Charlottetown boarding house.

Sure, she loved sharing her quarters with the girls, she loved the ambitious, busy atmosphere of the Queen’s, she loved living in a place teeming with scholarly challenges and late-night confidences.

But sometimes, she just felt like it was all too much. Like she just wanted to get out – _really_ out, not into the crowded Charlottetown streets, but into the welcoming, empty spaces that were Avonlea, were home. To be alone there, alone with her thoughts and feelings the way she was now.

Except, she wasn’t really alone. Or rather, she was more alone than she wanted to be. Because at her very core, in the place where she supposed a person’s soul must be located, there was a gaping void. A void which was screaming Gilbert Blythe’s name.

In the midst of all the chatter and the study sessions which filled her days in Charlottetown, it was comparatively easy to ignore; but here, in the stillness of the woods in which she and Gilbert first met all those years ago, its intensity was fairly maddening.

She wondered whether there was any snow in Paris, whether that fabled city looked as beautiful as the people who spoke about it always made it out to be.

Whether Gilbert was completely immersed in the happiness of being by Winifred’s side, or whether there was a small piece of him which remembered Avonlea and the friends he’d left behind.

‘Aaaaaah!’

One false step on the icy path and, with a short, piercing shriek of frightened surprise and a dull thud, Anne landed on the cold hard ground.

‘Oh, damn it!’ she muttered angrily, blinking back the tears as a sharp pain seared through her left ankle. She pulled the leg up and touched the aching spot. ‘Damn! Damn! _Damn_!’

‘Hullo! Is anybody here?’

Anne’s first thought was that she must have hit her head too, and was hallucinating as a result.

Then the sound of quickly approaching footsteps became more distinct, and Gilbert Blythe, looking round with a frown on his face, appeared within her sight.

Then he saw her and stood frozen for a second, his eyes unnaturally wide.

And then, before she could even attempt to get up, he was there, crouching by her side with his hands hovering gingerly above the leg she was still cradling as she stared up at him in dumbfounded silence.

How on earth was it possible for him to be here? He was supposed to be _oceans_ away!

‘Where does it hurt?’ he asked, looking up at her anxiously and startling her out of her trance.

‘It’s nothing,’ Anne said quickly, doing what she could to sound natural. ‘I simply slipped and twisted my ankle. I only screamed because I—I was lost in thought, and it caught me off guard.’

She proceeded to try to stand up, biting her lip hard as she tottered unsteadily on the painfully throbbing foot. Her mind was in a wild riot, and her one desire was to get away from Gilbert and get someone – _someone who wasn’t_ _him_ – to explain to her his presence in Avonlea.

Not that there was, in all probability, much to explain. Winifred’s parents were wealthy enough for the newlyweds to be able to afford the journey if the whim to make it had happened to take them.

She took three limping steps ahead and almost slipped once again.

‘Come on,’ Gilbert said quietly, appearing by her side and taking a firm hold of her arm by the elbow. ‘I’ll walk you home. Put your arm around my shoulders— just like this—‘ he went on, _making_ her do it, and wrapping his own arm around her waist for balance.

Anne thought that _crawling_ home on all fours would be preferable to her present state of hanging onto Gilbert Blythe’s neck for support, and was afraid to open her mouth in case she should actually say it and give him the impression that in the time they had not seen each other her manners had deteriorated rather than improved.

Gilbert was silent as well, and as she let him lead her on and listened to his steady, deep breathing so close beside her – where mere minutes ago she had thought of him as being thousands of miles away – it became increasingly impossible for Anne to look up at him.

It was only when they came within sight of Green Gables that she finally made herself turn her eyes up to his face, stopping and forcing him to stop as well.

He gazed back at her steadily, inquiringly.

‘Thank you,’ she said dully. ‘I’ll be fine now.’

A small furrow appeared between his brows.

‘Are you sure someone shouldn’t have a look at that ankle? It might be sprained.’

‘Someone meaning _you_?’ Anne countered sharply, increasingly annoyed by the wild way in which her heart insisted on fluttering under the influence of his proximity. She withdrew her arm from around his shoulders and, holding onto the fence, stepped away from his hold on her waist. ‘No, thanks. You’ve already done more than was necessary, really. Go back to your—your family. Goodnight.’

She turned and took a purposefully confident step. Her leg gave way, and with a small yelp which she tried hard to suppress she clutched at the fence beside her to avoid falling down.

‘Anne, please,’ Gilbert said, coming up to stand beside her.

She looked up, angry and tearful. This was simply too humiliating.

‘Come on,’ he urged, his voice polite but decisive. ‘The quicker we get you inside, the sooner you’ll be rid of me.’

Anne glanced up at his face, expecting to see resentment or bitterness. Instead, he looked merely tired. Very tired.

‘It’s not that,’ she amended lamely. ‘It’s just that I hate to cause a fuss.’

‘All right, then. The less opposition you put up, the less cause for a fuss there’ll be. Let’s go.’

He was pleading with her now, and Anne hated it; therefore, she nodded, and allowed him to lead her on, right up to the front door and through it.

***

Marilla’s head snapped up as they entered, and when she took in the sight of them she looked at once bewildered and anxious.

‘Anne? What’s wrong, child? Come on, sit down—‘

She drew out a stool, and Anne subsided onto it with a relieved sigh.

‘She’s – I think she’s twisted her ankle,’ she heard Gilbert say somewhere above her head.

‘Twisted? Are you sure it’s not sprained, child?’ Marilla asked, bending down and peering into Anne’s face.

Really, when _would_ Marilla stop calling her that? Child! At practically seventeen! Really, there were _some_ limits.

‘I’m sure,’ Anne answered, sullenly. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Couldn’t you make sure, Gilbert? If it’s sprained, we need to get her into Charlottetown tonight so that Dr Ward can set it.’

Gilbert cleared his throat. ‘If Anne consents—‘

‘Oh, bother about Anne’s whims!’ Marilla exclaimed, bending down and beginning to unlace the girl’s boot. ‘If you do, I grant you you’ll never get anything done!’

‘Marilla!’ Anne protested, her face burning. She dared not look at Gilbert. ‘Let me at least take off my own stocking, will you?’ she went on heatedly, pushing Marilla’s hands away. ‘Really, there’s no need to treat me like an invalid!’

She rolled down the stocking, too angry to even feel ashamed anymore. Then she stuck the leg out stiffly in front of her, pulling her skirts up to her knee.

‘Go on,’ she said without looking up.

Gilbert knelt down, and as his dark hair, slightly wet from the few stay flakes of snow which got caught in it, came into Anne’s field of vision, she suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to reach out and simply learn how those curls, which looked so soft, really felt to the touch.

What did she have to lose, anyway?

The next moment, however, she felt Gilbert’s fingers, at first tentative and then more firm, skim and then press into the bare skin of her ankle.

‘Does it hurt when I do this?’ he asked, turning and twisting her foot in different directions.

She failed to respond immediately, and he looked up with questioning eyes. Instead of taking his hand away, he rested it against the lower part of her calf.

Goosebumps exploded all down her arms and back.

‘Oh,’ she stammered, tearing her eyes away from where his long, tanned fingers were outlined against the pale, usually so well-hidden skin of her leg. At that moment Gilbert seemed to realise what he was doing, for he gave a small start and stood up hurriedly, and she could swear she saw a slight blush cover his cheeks. ‘No. I mean, almost not at all. All of this is absolutely— _absolutely_ unnecessary,’ she finished in a halting whisper.

‘Good,’ he said, his voice oddly hollow. ‘I mean, yes, if it was sprained you would feel it when I turned it.’

‘I know,’ Anne said. ‘I’ve had a sprained ankle before.’

‘Of course you have, child,’ Marilla chimed in, causing them both to start as she thus crudely reminded them of her presence in the room. ‘If you ask me, it’s a wonder you’re still in one piece after all the scrapes you’ve been through. Well, thank you, Gilbert.’

‘There’s nothing to thank him for,’ Anne put in maliciously, hating herself as she did so and giving him a cold look, brought to the verge of tears by his behaviour – his inconsiderate, impudent behaviour, putting his hands all over her as though he had the slightest right to do it. ‘I’ve told him all along it was nothing, but of course, he would not pass up an opportunity to play the good doctor.’

‘Anne!’

‘It’s all right, Miss Cuthbert. Anne’s right,’ Gilbert said quickly, not looking at the girl. ‘I only insisted on coming in because I wanted to see her safely home, but she’s right to say she’s probably had broader experience with sprained – twisted – ankles – than I have,’ he foundered, backing away towards the door and giving Marilla an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry for intruding. I wish you all a merry Christmas. Goodnight.’

He went out, closing the door with a maddening kind of gentle precision.

Anne could not bear it. She was literally choking on her own heart, it beat so hard. Why was she like this? What was it in him that brought out the worst, most childlike, spiteful side of her?

Acting on an imperative impulse, she pulled the boot onto her aching foot however and, standing up, rushed to the door, staggering and frowning with pain as she did so.

‘What on earth are you doing, child?’

‘I’ll be back in a second!’ she said over her shoulder, and slammed out of the door.

***

Gilbert was walking down the path leading to the gate, his hands deep in his pockets and his head bent low.

‘Gilbert!’

He stood still; then, slowly, he turned round and retraced his steps to where Anne was standing clutching the wooden post of the porch for spiritual rather than physical support.

He came up close and their eyes met in the failing December light, his face serious, wondering; Anne’s, pale and drawn with suppressed emotion.

‘Gilbert, I’m truly sorry for the way I spoke just now,’ she said breathlessly, stumbling over the words and looking down and away from him. ‘I have no excuse other than that my temper is as terrible as it’s always been. Please, know that I’m thankful for your help and your concern and wish you— _all of you_ —a very happy Christmas.’

Her words were met by silence, and she forced herself to look up.

‘Apology accepted,’ Gilbert said, smiling when her eyes met his. ‘Will you shake hands on the peace truce?’

Taking off his glove, he proffered his right hand. Anne glanced down at it furtively, and then quickly put her own in it, drawing in a deeper breath as her palm was engulfed in the warmth of Gilbert’s large, calloused one, and his fingers closed firmly around her own.

She looked up. He was wearing that peculiar expression which never failed to make her insides turn to liquid gold, and which she once – misguidedly, as it had turned out – used to think meant so much.

Anger flared up hot and high in her breast again, but she controlled herself and, withdrawing her hand, asked in a voice which was only a little too formal,

‘Are you staying on the farm? With Bash?’

Gilbert look startled. ‘Where else would I be staying?’

‘I—I just wasn’t sure if there would be enough room,’ Anne replied stiffly, wondering why she bothered to open her stupid mouth at all.

‘Not enough room? As in, you thought Dellie might have taken over my room in my absence?’ he asked, cracking a smile. ‘It’s not as bad as all that. Actually, I’ve got the whole place to myself. Bash and Dellie received a last minute invitation to spend Christmas with Mary’s friends in Charlottetown, and I urged him to accept.’

‘ _To yourself_?’ Anne latched onto the words, her eyes wide with incomprehension.

Gilbert gazed back at her a moment, visibly at a loss as to the cause of her bewilderment. ‘Uhm, yes. Unless,’ he went on with a small, uncertain laugh, ‘there’s a ghost I know nothing about that’s moved in since I went away. Then, that would make two of us.’

Anne wondered whether he talked nonsense on purpose to make her mad again. She stared at him, waiting for him to go on and tell her how “two of us” actually meant him and _his bloody wife_ , but he merely stared back, his gaze open and honest.

She saw that she had no option but accept that, for some inconceivable reason, he really _had_ come to Avonlea without Winifred. Which meant that he would have to—

‘But you can’t possibly spend Christmas all alone,’ she said, much more assured now that she knew for sure what she was talking about. ‘You must come over and have dinner with us.’

Gilbert’s eyebrows shot up. Then, a shadow crossed his face. ‘Are you only asking because you’re sorry for me? Because the last thing I want is to spoil the day for you by my unwelcome presence—‘

‘What? No!’ Anne exclaimed, her heart contracting at the thought that her awful behaviour had actually led him to believe she disliked having him around, when the truth – however much she might hate to admit it, and hide it from herself – was it made her feel complete for the first time in months.

Impulsively, she reached out and took his hand in her own again, giving it a reassuring squeeze. ‘We’ll be delighted to have you. All of us.’

‘You included?’ Gilbert asked, grinning now, his fingers lacing themselves through hers.

‘Me, most of all,’ she replied with unintended honesty.

His face literally lit up.

‘Anne,’ he said, reaching for her other hand and taking a step closer. She gazed up at him, wide-eyed, rooted to the spot, her uplifted face glowing in the dim dusk which surrounded them. ‘Anne, there's something I want to—‘

The front door creaked open. ‘Anne! Come back in and let me put some ointment on that ankle of yours! Or do you wish to wake up with it all swollen tomorrow, and go to church barefooted?’

She snatched her hands away, put them up to her burning cheeks. Taking a step back, Gilbert sent her a small, bashful smile which made her heart give a stutter.

‘See you tomorrow, then,’ he said.

And then he had turned around and was walking away from her, and Anne was left with her heart hammering viciously against her ribcage and her mind in a whirl.

What was all this supposed to mean? Oh, it was so wicked of her – and even worse of _him_! – to behave like this in Winifred’s absence!

Tomorrow, she would do better. She would follow all the rules of decorum. She would remember he was Winnie’s husband.

She would remember, above all, that he had repaid her declaration of love for him with, first, evasive silence, and then a letter in which he happily told her he was going to marry another—

( _but_ _you can’t be certain that’s what the letter really said_ , a nagging little voice whispered in Anne’s ear. _You’d destroyed it and only pieced together parts of it afterwards._ But she would not think about that. That note _had_ to be what she’d thought it was – for what else could it possibly have been?)

She would get through this Christmas with calm, collected dignity, no matter how difficult that was going to be. No matter how much it cost her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before you tell me how it makes no sense for Anne not to have learned in all that time that Gilbert never went to Paris/got married: I know that :D 
> 
> still, I'll try to explain in the next chapter (also, I simply need her to be oblivious of the truth, and therefore she IS :D)


	2. I can tell that I'm in trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uh-oh :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: for the purposes of this story, Anne never told Marilla/Matthew/Diana that she's in love with Gilbert! (I never thought that to be really in character anyway . . .)

Anne had never, in so many words, told her friends and family that she did not wish to hear any news concerning Gilbert Blythe’s actions; but it soon turned out there was no need for any such outright precautions.

The girls at the boarding house were much too taken up with boys who were present and unattached to discuss one who was neither; and even in Avonlea, no one seemed to know anything except that Gilbert was supposed to have gone off to Paris with the Roses.

Bash, if applied to, might certainly furnish more detail, but Anne would sooner cut her right hand off than ask: and Mrs Lynde and her army of gossip-mongers clearly saw no profit in seeking information about someone who was respectably married and living on a different continent.

And now, Anne thought sleepily as she studied her somewhat haggard-looking face in the mirror on Christmas morning, here he was, without Winifred, and without her having the least idea as to the cause of such a state of affairs.

She hoped vaguely that the inevitable morning visit to church might afford her some illumination, but even in this she was bitterly disappointed. Gilbert was there, sitting all alone in his old family pew at the back of the building, and when he caught her looking he even gave a friendly nod: but after the service, Marilla rushed Anne home before she could so much as look around and see who Gilbert was talking to or wither he directed his steps.

***

The pending Christmas dinner preparations loomed all the more ominous on Marilla’s horizon because Anne, provided with a myriad strict instructions, was to complete them on her own, Marilla herself having engaged to help out Rachel Lynde, who had had the ridiculously bad luck to get her right arm broken a mere week before.

Two in the afternoon saw Anne rushing about the kitchen with her hair slipping out of her haphazardly plaited braid, her old dress covered in flour and greasy stains, and her eyes wild under her perspiring brows. Matthew had wisely retired from the scene some time before, and Anne was glad to have the place to herself: at least no one was there to see how difficult it was for her, a straight-As scholar, to manage the putting of the finishing touches to a few simple dishes and one chocolate cake.

It was at the moment when she was focused on putting the frosting on the latter – a pleasant task, but a particularly absorbing one – that she heard the front door open, and, without turning round, burst out breathlessly,

‘Oh, Marilla, thank _goodness_ you’re back already! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not by any means that I’m not doing great, I truly _am_ , but it is such _exhausting_ work, advanced algebra simply _does not compare_! Really, I think I might as well make it the mission of my life to get the government to ensure decent wages to all the women who spend their lives keeping houses! It would be only _fair_ , don’t you agree?’

‘I absolutely do.’

It was only by lucky accident that, as she whirled round abruptly, Anne did not knock the precious cake straight off the counter.

Standing in the doorway and grinning at her somewhat sheepishly was Gilbert Blythe.

‘What are you doing here?’ Anne gasped, her cheeks heating up as the awareness of her disastrous appearance, all soiled and tousled, came home to her. No wonder he was smirking like that!

‘Well . . . You invited me to come, didn’t you? Yesterday evening?’

‘Yes, but—but you’re here way too early,’ she said crossly, gesturing at the surrounding mess. ‘I suppose you’ve forgotten at what hour dinners are served in regular Canadian households?’

Gilbert’s smile faded, his eyebrows shot up in confusion. ‘No, I haven’t,’ he said simply. ‘I realise I’m a bit early, but I—I thought I might lend you a hand, or something.’

The calmness with which he spoke made Anne realise something she had not thought of before, and which made her feel unutterably miserable: there was no point in her worrying about how she looked when he was around. He did not care: he had no _right_ to care. He had a chic, lovely wife, and the fact that he saw Anne look messy and tired and even downright dirty simply did not matter anymore, and never would again.

‘Oh,’ she said, her tones flat. ‘I suppose you could. Only,’ she added with a small chuckle, eyeing his immaculate suit as he took off his coat, ‘I’m afraid you haven’t come dressed for the occasion.’

He smiled back, coming forward and rubbing his hands together. ‘Oh, come on, that’s easily remedied. Haven’t you a spare apron?’

‘ _An_ _apron_?’

‘Yes, an apron. You know, a piece of protective cloth that you put over your—‘

‘Oh, shut up!’ she interrupted, smiling in spite of herself.

She took the largest apron they had from the hook and, giggling at the silly face Gilbert made at her as she approached him with it, reached up unthinkingly to tie it round his neck.

She had to push herself up on tiptoe as she did so – had he _always_ been so tall? – and suddenly, their faces were on a level and distractingly close, and Anne’s arms were up and around Gilbert’s shoulders, and she could feel his body heat through the thin fabric of her old dress, and it made her stupid head dizzy, and she was tottering and, _oh God_ , she was actually stumbling into him and his hands were on her waist to steady her and his eyes were boring into hers, and then they dropped down to her lips—

‘You’d better tie it yourself,’ she mumbled, backing abruptly out of his hold on her and turning away, her whole body throbbing as the blood pumped frantically though her veins.

What was _wrong_ with her? _This was a married man!_ To feel like this only because he was forced by her own clumsiness to touch her – in the most innocent of ways, too! For what was a hand laid on a fully clothed waist? – was utterly, utterly wicked. She was a wicked, corrupt woman. She was going straight to hell. There was no hope for her, there really wasn’t—

She heard Gilbert clear his throat.

‘All right, what do I do, then?’

Was it her imagination, or did her sound just _slightly_ out of breath?

Anne turned round.

He smiled at her, a perfectly natural, friendly smile. Well, after all that’s who she was to him – a friend, a _classmate_ , she reminded herself bitterly. Her heart contracted with a disappointment she would not admit, but then, thankfully, began to beat more quietly.

Gilbert turned out to be a very helpful kitchen assistant, doing whatever Anne told him to without demur and with considerable skill. And she would have enjoyed working alongside of him in this simple, quiet way if it had not been for the constant nagging feeling of _this-happiness-could-have-been-all-mine_. If she had told him she cared for him the night of the Queen’s exam, he would have stayed and courted her, and then, in some distant married future, they could be with each other like this every day of their lives.

_But he was never really ready to give up the Sorbonne for you_ , she reminded herself bitterly. _You had told him you loved him, in that letter he never even acknowledged receiving. He has made his choice, and it wasn’t you._

‘I say, this does look delicious. Are you sure it’s actually chocolate-flavoured, though?’

She turned round and saw Gilbert standing gazing down at her cake, a teasing smirk on his face. His stupid, hateful face.

‘I assure you it is,’ she replied, crossing her arms belligerently on her chest. ‘For your information, my cooking skills have improved _considerably_ since that debacle at the fair.’

He was still smiling. The fool. The impudent fool.

‘Well, I suppose that had less to do with your cooking skills than with that widely reputed impetuosity of yours.’

‘Indeed,’ Anne hissed through her teeth. ‘That has changed as well, then. Actually, _a lot of things_ have changed since that time, wouldn’t you say?’

Her eyes were cold on him as she watch his smile falter and then disappear completely. He gazed back questioningly, anxiously.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked quietly.

Anne felt that it was below her dignity to answer such an inane query, and merely laughed a short, mean little laugh.

‘Never mind,’ she said, moving to put the dirty spoon she was holding in the sink.

As she passed him, Gilbert caught her by the arm, forcing her to stop and look up into his drawn, inquiring face.

‘Anne, what’s wrong? Have I done something to offend you?’

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. What _could_ she say? That she felt offended he had chosen to pursue his ambitions rather than to stay and try to build up a future with her, an girl who was poor, hardly presentable-looking, and reputed for a nasty temper?

Tears started to her eyes, and she looked down in an attempt to hide it.

‘Anne,’ Gilbert said softly, pleadingly, putting a hand up to her chin and tilting it back up, his eyes dark and earnest. ‘Tell me what’s wrong. Please.’

‘Nothing,’ she said, struggling to free herself from his hold on her arm. Her whole body felt unbearably hot. She could not stand being this close to him a second longer. ‘Let me go.’

‘Anne—‘

The front door opened abruptly, and Marilla bustled in, bringing in with herself a whiff of icy cold air which made Anne shiver as she quickly stepped away from Gilbert and busied herself by the sink.

‘Anne, I do hope you are about done—Oh, hello there, Gilbert!’

‘Good afternoon, Miss Cuthbert.’

‘Gilbert dropped in a little earlier and I made him earn his fare,’ Anne, her back still turned to the room, said with a cheerfulness so forced it made her cringe. ‘So, we’re practically wrapping up.’

‘Really, Anne!’ Marilla said reproachfully, and then, turning with a deprecating smile to Gilbert, ‘You shouldn’t let her exploit you like that, you know. You’re our guest after all.’

‘I don’t mind. I’d rather be here than sit around all alone at the farm.’

What _precious_ munificence! He’d rather toil in her company than sit in an empty house on a Christmas day! Indeed, this was too impudent for words.

With an angry snort, Anne turned round and met Gilbert’s eyes. He looked tired and miserable enough, but she was not going to feel sorry for him. She was _not_. He was a complacent, spoiled brat who deserved whatever he’d brought on his own head. If Winnie had turned out to be the nagging, henpecking kind of wife, he deserved that too.

‘—so Anne, do you have it?’

‘Have what?’ she asked in complete bewilderment, turning to face Marilla.

The older woman pursed her lips. ‘What are you daydreaming about again? I was asking you about Mrs Lynde’s cooking book. The new one. She says she lent it to you to copy out a recipe for—‘

‘Oh. Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘Well, then what are you waiting for? Go and return it, double-quick!’

‘What?’ Anne asked, staring in patent disbelief. ‘Now? What does she need it for, anyway? She can’t possibly bake with a broken arm.’

‘Of course she can’t. She bought it as a Christmas gift for Caleb’s wife.’

‘Oh. But—‘ with a rapid glance at the clock, which showed the hour to be half past three, ‘But I don’t have the time—I still have to change and—and do my hair—‘

‘I’ll go,’ Gilbert offered quickly.

She shot him a sharp glance. He returned it impassively.

‘Good heavens, child, quit staring so and go fetch that book! And where’s Matthew? Is it his newest idea that he can get away with spending Christmas in the barn? I’ll go mad one day with the two of you—‘

‘Come on,’ Anne said quietly, in spite of herself taking pity on Gilbert’s discomfiture at Marilla’s outburst. She plucked him awkwardly by the sleeve and dragged him towards the staircase.

‘I put it somewhere here—somewhere on the desk, I think,’ she went on abstractedly, throwing open the door to her room.

She went in confidently, Gilbert following obediently close upon her heels.

And then she stopped short in horrified disbelief. Disbelief at her own thoughtless stupidity.

Because there, spread out on her bed, lay, not only the dress that she was to wear for the dinner – that was nothing – but also, oh gods, her corset, conspicuously propped up against the footboard and, worst of all, her brand new, lace-trimmed chemise and petticoat and stockings, articles of clothing which she had bought with such pleasure in how grown-up they looked and which now she wished had never been produced, much less sold to her.

_Calm down_ , that nasty, ever-present little voice said in her ear as she stood there, her face burning up to the very roots of her hair. _Aren’t you forgetting something? Gilbert is a married man. He’s bound to know all about female underwear. He’s seen Winnie’s hundreds of times._

_He’s bound to know all about everything,_ the voice went on sickeningly. _Marital relations. Intercourse. He knew the theory even before he got married – remember, he’s studying medicine. And now he knows the practical side too._

Anne’s vision went blurry at the thought. It was absolutely devastating, and she felt like the silliest little goose for not having thought about it before, for letting the realisation take her by such terrible surprise now. She felt like screaming.

‘There it is!’ she exclaimed wildly, pouncing on Mrs Lynde’s book which, mercifully, lay on the very top of the papers with which her desk was strewn.

She whirled back on him, her face plastered over with what she felt to be the fakest imitation of a politely indifferent smile she’d ever put on.

Gilbert was standing just within the doorway. His eyes snapped to meet Anne’s as soon as she’d turned round, but she knew, she just _knew_ what he had been looking at when her back was towards him.

Was her sight getting thrown out of gear by her silly imaginings, or was he actually _blushing_? Also, he was the one to look away from her now, for the first time since they met last evening.

‘Here,’ she said, handing him the book. ‘Thanks for—‘

‘It’s nothing,’ he mumbled, and then, in a flash, was gone and stomping down the stairs.

It was as much as Anne could do to strangle the hysterical laughter rising up in her throat before it escaped her mouth.

She highly doubted she’d be able to make it sane through the rest of the day.


	3. I'm safe, up high

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this was initially 4000 words long, so I sliced it into two chapters!
> 
> enjoy!! (hopefully :D)

After the first overwhelming flush of embarrassment was over, Anne bathed her glowing face in cold water and decided that there was only one way to deal with the situation: act like the woman of the world she (living in a town boarding house) after all _was_ , and decide once and for all that what had just transpired was merely an awkward but insignificant incident.

Still, as she put on her undergarments, she could not help but remember how Gilbert’s eyes had lain on them – and the thought, while it made her blush, sent through body her a thrill so deep and achingly pleasurable that she was more than ever convinced she was thoroughly depraved. Innocent-minded, well-brought-up girls could not possibly feel and think like this.

Having finished dressing, she went up to the mirror and studied herself dejectedly in it.

She knew she was not looking her best these days, and the dress seemed ill-fitting and uncomplimentary to her pale complexion and lacklustre eyes. Her hair, too, seemed bent on withstanding even the most persistent application of comb and pin, and she finally gave the attempt up and let it hang over her shoulder in a tidier variation of the simple braid she’d worn all day.

Anne decided she was an out-and-out frump, and there was nothing she could do about it but endure it with as good a grace as she could muster.

***

When she came downstairs the kitchen was dark and empty. She wandered into the living room, and found Gilbert standing by the Christmas tree in the far corner of it, his back to the door.

She came up to stand beside him, vaguely thankful that the light cast by the candles adorning the tree was so dim and warm. At least, she would not scare him with her scarecrow looks right away.

He hardly spared her a nod, however, his attention ostensibly fully occupied by the intricacies of the decorations.

‘These are nice,’ he said, pointing to a crochet-made snowdrop – of which there was quite a number – that hung from a nearby branch.

‘I made them, actually.’

Gilbert threw her a surprised sideways glance. She returned it challengingly, and he smiled.

‘I wouldn’t have thought you liked this kind of work,’ he said teasingly.

Anne gave a small deprecating snort. ‘I _don’t_. But all that sitting around stitching away really teaches one to persevere patiently in spite of small irritating setbacks.’

His eyebrows shot up and he let out a laugh, but said nothing.

‘What’s so funny?’ Anne prodded irritably.

‘Not “funny”. Inspiring, rather. They way you put it.’

Gilbert’s voice was suddenly sounding oddly soft, and Anne found herself at a loss for a witty comeback.

‘Oh, well,’ she sighed, reaching out mechanically to touch one of the ornaments. ‘I guess anything can be made out to seem inspiring, if one puts one’s mind to it. I mean,’ she babbled on, the way she could feel Gilbert’s eyes boring into the side of her face making it difficult to concentrate, ‘I mean, of course, within reason. But even the most menial of everyday household tasks can be turned into an adventure—‘

Gilbert put his own hand over her outstretched one and, wrapping his fingers around hers, pulled it away from the tree branch and close against his chest, forcing Anne to turn and face him, her lips slightly open in mute surprise at the suddenness of the gesture and her eyes very wide in her pallid face.

‘Anne, there’s something I have to tell you,’ he said, his voice quiet but urgent, his eyes intense on hers. ‘I know I said I wouldn’t bother you about it anymore, but—‘

‘What are you sitting in the dark for? Anne, why haven’t you lighted the candles yet? Are you waiting for a special invitation?’

Marilla’s brisk tones came breaking in upon the moment like a slap across Anne’s face, and, snatching her hand away from Gilbert’s with a frightened, guilty blush overspreading her cheeks, she rushed towards the table and began fumbling with the matches while Marilla hovered around, inspecting the setting of the table.

Anne’s one ardent wish was not to be left alone with Gilbert again, and as soon as the candles were all lit she scurried into the kitchen, remarking over her shoulder that Marilla might sit down and she would bring the dishes in.

When she came in again, Matthew had appeared and was seated at the head of the table smiling at her encouragingly. She returned the smile, and then, inadvertently, her eyes encountered Gilbert’s from where he sat on the elderly man’s left.

There was an odd look, as of embarrassment mixed with irritation, on his face, and Anne had a moment’s grim satisfaction when he was the first to look away.

Because the truth of it was, his behaviour was getting more and more inexplicable. He was the last man on earth she would have suspected of being capable of acting with impertinence towards another woman in the absence of his newly-wed wife – and yet!

Dinner was passing off more or less well, with Anne focused on not looking at the seat opposite, talking mainly to Matthew but replying promptly whenever Marilla spoke to her.

Towards the end of the meal she heard the latter address to Gilbert an observation which made her, quite despite her resolve, look up straight ahead swiftly and sharply.

‘You oughtn’t to be overworking yourself, Gilbert. You’re not looking well. I’m sure you’re not taking proper care of yourself at that university of yours.’

A small pang contracted Anne’s heart as she took in the words and realised how true they were: Gilbert really _was_ looking unusually worn out, and there were sharper angles and darker shadows to his face than before he’d gone away.

Why wasn’t Winifred seeing to it that he got the right amount of rest? She ought to know him well enough to realise that unless someone made him slow down, he was ready to work himself to the bone trying to measure up to his own ridiculously high standards. Or was his wife actually encouraging him in his neck-breaking aspirations? Perhaps he felt he needed to prove himself worthy of the educational opportunities she’d procured for him—

She could actually feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes. It was unbelievable. Was she, Anne Shirley, fool enough to cry about imaginary injustices done to a man she had no right to care about? She was pathetic.

‘It’s not as bad as all that. I suppose it’s just that the big city atmosphere doesn’t agree with me as much as I’d like,’ Gilbert replied with a polite smile and a deprecating shrug.

Then he turned and met Anne’s eyes, and his smile vanished and was replaced by an anxious, confused frown. She realised she was staring at him with moisture-filled eyes, and quickly looked down at her plate, furiously willing the treacherous tears not to spill down her cheeks.

‘Anne is just as bad as you,’ she heard Marilla go on with maddening pertinacity. ‘She is looking positively haggard ever since she started going to Queen’s. Anyone would think she’s slaving away in a quarry, not sitting around reading books all day—’

‘ _Marilla_!’ Anne interrupted indignantly, looking up with her cheeks blazing hot. ‘Can we _please_ change the subject?’

‘Well, aren’t I right, Gilbert?’

Anne, nearly wild with fury at the older woman’s importunity, turned to him involuntarily, her eyes flashing.

He had the decency to look discomfited.

‘I—I think Anne is looking as nice as ever,’ he stammered out, dropping his gaze and lifting it again with a faint smile. ‘Though, of course, I admit it is hard to keep as healthy as one ought to in the midst of all the work there is to do at college.’

Perfect! He thought she was looking sickly. _Nice_ , but sickly.

‘Well, I suppose I ought to be grateful she is actually putting the time spent at Queen’s to its proper use – unlike _some_ of our girls,’ declared Marilla grimly. ‘From what I’ve been hearing, Ruby Gillis and Tillie Boulter are too busy gallivanting around with Charlottetown boys to have time to spare for algebra and geography.’

‘Nobody’s _gallivanting around_ with anybody,’ Anne said with an exhausted emphasis. Really, what _had_ gotten into Marilla? ‘And anyway, we _are_ grown up enough to be courted, aren’t we? It is permissible to see boys on certain days, and anyone who cares to may take advantage of that.’

‘Grown up indeed!’ Marilla countered with a patronising little smirk. ‘But I know perfectly well where this is coming from. I don’t know if you’ve heard, Gilbert, but our Anne’s on her way to make quite a conquest.’

Anne’s face was burning as she sent the older woman an incredulous stare. ‘What are you talking about, Marilla? You must have been listening to some stupid gossip—‘

‘Well, all I know is that Jane Andrews has written home that a certain Royal Gardner – heir prospective to some mightily prosperous import company or other, if I remember correctly – is making quite a point of trying to gain your affection.’

Anne caught Gilbert’s eye, and, her stomach churning, looked quickly away. ‘Marilla—‘

‘Why, child, you’re white as a sheet!’ Marilla remarked, as though only now awakened to the emotions her words were causing Anne to go through. ‘No need to get upset, I’m only talking in jest—‘

‘Well, I’m not amused!’ Anne hissed through her teeth, getting up abruptly and beginning to collect the empty plates. Gilbert made as if to help her, but she threw him a glare so icy his hand froze in mid-air.

‘Please, don’t bother,’ she said coldly, haughtily. ‘Stay and entertain Marilla. Only try and leave personal remarks about me out of your conversation.’

‘Really, Anne!’ Marilla expostulated as Anne, unheeding, swept furiously out of the room.

***

Having finished washing up, Anne went up to the kitchen window and looked out, her eyes taking in eagerly the sparkling wilderness of snow which made the dimness of the late afternoon seem a little brighter.

She heard someone come in, and was relieved to see it was only Marilla.

‘Oh, Marilla, I wish I could go on a walk! It’s so beautiful and so peaceful outside, a genuine winter wonderland!’

She regretted the words, and the ardour with which she’d spoken them, as soon as they were out of her mouth.

‘Well, then take Gilbert and go,’ Marilla said offhandedly. ‘You’ll go with her, won’t you, Gilbert?’

He had just entered, and looked a little bewildered at the invitation thus unexpectedly pressed upon him.

‘Go where?’ he asked, looking from Marilla to Anne and valiantly managing to hold the latter’s hostile glare.

‘Nowhere—‘

‘To see the wonders of the winter world, apparently,’ Marilla said with an indulgent laugh. ‘Why, I’d go myself, only I’ve been up and running around all day and my knees are really beginning to protest.’

‘I can go alone,’ Anne said defiantly, but with an inevitable premonition of how hopeless her protest was. ‘I don’t need a _nanny_.’

‘Yes, you do. It’s getting late. You’d better hurry up. Go and get Gilbert to breathe in some fresh air. It’ll do him good.’

As though she could ever be bothered to do anything with a view to doing Gilbert Blythe good! The idea was preposterous. Let his wife worry about his lack of fresh air. Let her take him on a walk to the Versailles gardens, or wherever.

As Anne stomped off to put on her outer garments, there was that awful tightness in her throat. Again.


	4. one too many times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> . . . let the games begin, I guess :D

Initially, they walked on in complete silence.

Anne told herself sternly that Gilbert’s presence by her side and the way it made her body tremble to its innermost core did not in the least matter and would not prevent her from enjoying the beauty of the snow-clad woods and meadows.

After some five minutes had passed in this fashion, with Anne looking anywhere but at Gilbert and him looking fixedly at the ground, he glanced up and said abruptly,

‘Would you mind if we just looked in at my place? There’s something I forgot—‘

‘Of course,’ Anne cut him off, determinedly impersonal.

‘Thanks.’

‘It doesn’t make the slightest difference to me where we go. I only went out at all because Marilla insisted.’

‘Oh. All right, then.’

Another interval of silence. Anne felt like screaming.

‘I'm sorry if what I said during dinner offended you,’ Gilbert spoke up again, haltingly. ‘Miss Cuthbert was expecting an answer, and I had to say something.‘

Anne could feel the blood mount to her cheeks. She looked up at him with a derisive smile.

‘ _Naturally_ ,’ she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘And the only thing you could find to say was that I’m looking _unhealthy_. Well, I guess honesty’s the best policy. At least then one knows where one stands.’

‘I never said you’re looking unhealthy!’ Gilbert rejoined with some asperity. ‘I’m telling you I had to say _something_. And it’s not like you seem to be exactly thriving on college life, you know.’

Anne’s eyes flashed up, hard as steel. This was truly incredible!

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t see how that is in the least your business,’ she snapped out angrily, making him wince. ‘Besides, I didn’t go to Queen’s to pamper myself into wellbeing! It’s not like I sit around in a fancy apartment all day, with a three-course dinner served to me on silver platters and foreign beauticians waiting round every corner! And anyway, if anybody’s looking like they’re – what was it? – _slaving away in a quarry_ , it’s you, not me. But I don’t make a point of telling you that!’

The blatant contradiction of her last statement made Gilbert let out a small, ironical snicker. ‘Sure you don’t. You don’t ever say anything but pleasant things to me, don’t you?’

‘What? Where is that coming from?’ Anne asked with indignant exasperation, stopping short in her tracks and facing him with her hands placed belligerently on her hips. ‘What’s your problem, Gilbert?’

‘ _My_ problem?’ he repeated, eyebrows shooting up. ‘Anne, it’s you who won’t tell me what’s wrong.’

‘Wrong? As in, apart from the fact that—‘ _that you’ve chosen to marry to her and yet have the temerity to come here and disturb my peace of mind_ , she was going to say, but stopped herself just in time.

‘Never mind,’ she finished lamely, turning away and resuming to walk. ‘I don’t want to quarrel.’

‘And do you think _I_ do?’ Gilbert asked bitterly, catching up with her. ‘I thought we’ve moved beyond that.’

‘Well, apparently I’m more immature than you gave me credit for.’

He caught her by the hand, and Anne whipped round on him with a face of uncontained fury. ‘For God’s sake, stop doing this!’ she hissed, struggling to free her hand from his firm grasp.

‘Anne—‘

‘ _I said let go_!’ she repeated, her voice rising dangerously in pitch and tears of mingled anger and resentment brimming up in her eyes as Gilbert complied with the demand. ‘I don’t want you to touch me, _not ever again_ , do you understand? Or do you think that since I’m only a common country girl you can treat me without any respect at all?’

He stared at her, his face white and rigid. ‘Anne, I would never—I would never consciously disrespect you,’ he stammered out, his eyes scanning her face anxiously, pleadingly. ‘I—I apologise if I—‘

Anne wanted to hate him. She really did. She wished with all her heart she could just turn round right then and there and return home, and leave him to fend for himself – _as he had shown he was so capable of doing_ , the little voice added meanly.

But she could not stand the way Gilbert looked and sounded right now. She loved him, and she did not want to see him hurt. It was as simple as that. And as weak, and as stupid, and as terrible.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, looking away from him and doing what she could to speak composedly. ‘I’m sorry. I overreacted. I should have realised—I mean, I suppose things are different to you now that you live in a big, cosmopolitan city. But—but still, I’d rather not—I mean,’ she foundered on, glancing up at him quickly and holding his confused, anxiously inquiring gaze, ‘can we please just forget all about—this? Please. Let’s just enjoy the holidays. You’ll have to go – _back_ – soon enough, and then we shall be sorry we’ve wasted our time in meaningless bickering that can’t possibly lead anywhere.’

The furrow between Gilbert’s brows deepened as she spoke, as though he couldn’t see what she was aiming at, and her heart gave a painful wrench. He still apparently saw nothing wrong in behaving in this – this _familiar_ way – towards her.

Well, Anne thought with a small bitter grimace, men were but men.

However, now that it was she who was pleading with him, he evidently felt something of what she had felt ( _and after all_ , thought Anne, _he might be genuinely in love with me still – he as good as told me he was, that night by the bonfire, and I believed him; but what did that change? Nothing. Not his decision to leave. And it won’t change anything now. And if I can help it, it won’t take his friendship – what is left of it – away from me_ ) and, relaxing his expression into a small reassuring smile, he said quite calmly,

‘Of course. I’m sorry as well. You’re right. Let’s go on, and talk about something funny for a change, shall we?’

Anne gave an assenting nod, and they moved on their way towards Gilbert’s house.

Unfortunately, he did not put forward any “funny” subject for conversation, and silence fell between them once again. It was less tense now, at least for Anne, because she’d stopped being frightened of what he might do: she was merely sad now, and also rather inclined to feel sorry for both Gilbert and herself. They had messed up and both ended up unhappy, and there was no turning back.

However, Gilbert’s next words caused her to shed all such sympathetic feelings towards him.

‘So, is that Roy guy from Charlottetown a good friend of yours?’ he asked, his voice somewhat strained in the effort to sound natural.

Instantaneous anger flared up in Anne. What right had he to be questioning her about her male acquaintance? She looked up frowning, encountering Gilbert’s inquiring, somewhat hesitant gaze.

‘A good _friend_?’ she repeated sharply. ‘No, he’s not a particularly good _friend_ of mine. But he’s a very well-mannered, agreeable person. Very interesting to talk to, too. In fact, he’s the most interesting, most gentlemanlike boy I’ve met there,’ Anne finished with a shameless untruthfulness, for it was already her established opinion that Royal Gardner was a boring, stuck-up snob. ‘We get along very well together. He likes poetry, he even writes it himself.’

A contemptuous smile hovered on Gilbert’s lips at those last words, but Anne managed to preserve a demeanour of unbroken, cool seriousness, and, his jaw clenched tight as though he was trying to stop himself from saying anything more, he turned away, and neither looked at nor spoke to her again until they had reached the front door of his house.

Giving her a small, crooked smile over his shoulder as he unlocked it, he said in a casual, friendly tone,

‘Come on in for a second. There’s something I have to get, and then I’ll walk you back home.’

‘I don’t need you to!’ Anne began peevishly as she stepped into the hall after him—

–but then the remembrance of that day when she’d come rushing here to see him, and found him gone, and wrote him a note in which she said, in so many words, that she loved him, and to which he never replied (but he did! only she would never now know _how_ ) came crashing down upon her, and she fell silent, and stood there staring at nothing and completely oblivious to both Gilbert’s reply and to where he had gone and for what purpose.

It was only when he was back, actually standing in front of her and already saying something, that Anne finally came out of her remorseful abstraction.

‘Oh,’ she said, frowning in an attempt to focus as, in the last remnants of daylight that poured in through the open front door, she gazed up into his face. ‘I’m sorry, what were you saying? I’m afraid I got a little lost in thought.’

Gilbert smiled, but his eyes remained anxious.

‘Reminiscing about the good old days, eh?’ he asked, looking round. ‘I know I am whenever I enter this place.’

This seemed an unnecessarily provocative thing to say – seeing that he had done all he could to get out of Avonlea – but Anne merely smiled back, somewhat wanly, and said,

‘Yes, I suppose I was. But,’ she added quickly, as he turned towards her with a kind of soft, fond expression in his eyes which made her heart beat quicker, and which made her wish she’d never come in here with him, all alone, ‘you were saying something. To me. Before.’

‘What? Oh, yes,’ Gilbert blinked distractedly, and a kind of tension crept back into his face. ‘It’s only that I—I’ve got something for you. And I hope you’ll accept it for—for old time’s sake.’

And he held out a small, elongated gleaming object which, peering down at it in the quickly gathering dusk, Anne discerned to be an expensive-looking, dark-blue fountain pen, tied with a matching bow.

She reached out for it impulsively.

Then, her hand stilled in mid-air, and she looked up with her face drained of blood and her eyes wide with a kind of pained incredulity.

‘I can’t possibly accept this,’ she said, her voice barely audible.

For the horrible, odious thought had just crossed her mind that it must have been with Winifred’s – or rather, her father’s – money that he had bought it. There was no way he could possibly have any money of his own laid by now that he was no longer working on the farm and living in such an expensive place.

Gilbert’s expression went a little more tense, and he swallowed heavily.

‘But I told you this is a present I make you as—as an old friend. You remember that time you lent me your pen before the Queen’s exams?’ he went on, visibly striving to lighten the atmosphere. ‘I know you were always so particular about not losing it, seeing that you only had one. Now you’ll have another to fall back on in case you ever mislay that old one.’

For a second, Anne actually wondered whether he was being cruel on purpose. He could hardly have said anything less calculated to conciliate her, for the mention of her old pen was enough to make her remember, once again, the circumstances of its return to her, with that letter in which he’d announced his engagement to Winnie ( _or did he?_ ).

‘Gilbert,’ she enunciated slowly, her whole face crumpled up pathetically with the effort it took her to prevent another outburst of tears. ‘Please take this pen back where it came from. And please, stop—stop acting like this. I can’t bear this anymore—I simply _can’t_.’

‘Anne,’ he began, reaching out to touch her on the arm, and then, his expression stricken, letting his hand fall back to his side as she edged away. ‘Anne, please, let’s just—‘

‘I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses!’ she interrupted in a shrill cry, her self-control breaking down utterly. ‘I simply _don’t_. Please, leave me alone. Why did you have to come here? I was beginning to be happy—to forget—and you have the temerity to come and ruin it all, and then act and look like you don’t know what I’m talking about—‘

‘ _Because I don’t_!’ he put in with a kind of desperate recklessness. ‘All I want is to make things all right between us again, but at every turn, you act as though I was doing something criminal! And I have no idea why!’

Anne laughed an awful, high-pitched, hysterical laugh.

‘Oh my God, I can’t believe it!’ she cried, her eyes quite wild as she stared back into his pale, rigid face. ‘You are incredible, Gilbert Blythe! You know what? Go to hell! I don’t ever want to see you again!’

And with that, she turned round on her heel and tore out of the house and down the path, her eyes blinded with tears and her ears deaf to anything save the frantic, erratic thumping of her heart.


	5. hard to see through the smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took so long! all the more thanks to everyone who's still hanging in there!  
> (also, this chapter is rather all over the place, for which I apologise)  
> see you soon (hopefully)!

Gilbert didn’t go after her, and for that Anne was grateful, for she was convinced she would not have been responsible for what would have happened if he had. She might have continued to level abuse and accusations at him, or she might have kissed him. Either way, it would have ended in even _more_ tears and pain.

The ensuing night and the entirety of Boxing Day were one torture to Anne. She didn’t see any more of Gilbert: when Marilla asked her whether she’d asked him to come over when she had walked home with him the day before Anne replied, in an indifferent tone and with her eyes so dry they felt sore, that she had, and that he had declined on account of a previous engagement.

And then she spent the rest of the day praying that wasn’t going to come, and hoping, against herself, that he would, and that he would somehow make everything all right again.

Except that that, of course, was impossible.

***

By the time the morning of December 27 dawned on Green Gables, Anne had worked herself into a pitch of nervous suspense bordering on hysteria which made her look positively feverish, and when she’d come downstairs for breakfast Marilla greeted her with a disapproving frown.

‘Why, child, you’re looking downright ill. I don’t think I can possibly let you go to that silly ball of yours in such a state.’

Anne’s face went deathly white.

‘Marilla, please! I am perfectly well. It’s just the excitement. But it’s _good_ excitement. You can’t take Aunt Jo’s soiree away from me! You know it’s at my and Diana’s request that she’s organising it in the first place – and besides, _it’s the one highlight of my baleful existence_!’ she finished, piteously.

A small smile appeared on Marilla’s face. ‘Well, at least now you’re beginning to speak like the Anne I know. Yesterday you were so taciturn all day I thought something was really wrong with you.’

‘It’s not, it’s _not_! All I need is to get away from—from _here_ for a few hours, and be with—with _other people_ , and you’ll see I’ll come back looking and feeling _immeasurably_ better!’

‘Amen to that,’ Marilla countered with a meaningful glance at Anne’s dishevelled hair, haphazard attire, and agitated face. ‘I shall devoutly hope you do.’

***

Aunt Jo’s Christmas soiree was a party given in explicit honour of the Avonlea young ladies who had that year began their studies at Queen’s, and had been the chief source of the girls’ vague but exciting hopes ever since the day in late November when Anna and Diana had brought home to the boarding house the news that such an event was to take place.

The fact that the invitations extended by Aunt Jo were of the plus-one variety made the affair more exciting still, and meant that, on December 27, Moody Spurgeon and the two Pauls boarded the midday Charlottetown train along with Anne, Diana, Ruby, Tillie, Jane and Josie.

‘Haven’t you invited anyone?’ Anne asked Diana as they settled into their opposing seats.

Diana smiled slyly. ‘Why, are you disappointed Charlie Sloane isn’t coming?’ Anne rolled her eyes, and the other girl went on with increasing smugness, ‘Actually, I have. A Charlottetown boy.’

‘Oh, one of the countless, ruthlessly scorned Queen’s admirers of yours?’ Anne asked somewhat cattily by way of retaliation.

‘No; one of _yours_.’

‘What?’

‘Roy Gardner, of course,’ Diana replied with a meaningful laugh. ‘Really, the poor dear was quite desperate when the days passed and you wouldn’t ask him to come as your escort. I simply _had_ to take pity on him.’

‘Roy Gardner hardly needs anyone’s pity,’ Anne, whose cheeks had gone rather pink, countered irritably.

‘He does when it comes to you. You’re not terribly nice to him, you know, and he’s always taking such pains to let you know he likes you.’

Anne stared. ‘Diana, you can’t be serious. Roy doesn’t _like_ me. And anyway, you must have noticed how self-centred and stuck up he is.’

Diana laughed again, this time with more merriment still. ‘Oh, Anne, it’s the same story with you all over again, isn’t it?’

‘And just what are you talking about?’ Anne asked sharply, sitting up with a frown.

‘Stop glaring, you know I’m not afraid of your grimaces. I mean Gilbert, of course. He used to be so taken up with you, and yet you always persisted in seeing the worst in him.’

Anne felt very cold all of a sudden, and an unpleasant shiver ran down her spine.

‘Well, he doesn’t appear to have suffered because of my unkindness in the long run,’ she heard herself say in a tight, emotionless voice.

Diana shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He didn’t look so terribly well at church the other day. I wonder why she – his wife, I mean – didn’t come with him.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But then, Gilbert’s house hardly offers the conveniences she’s used to. Perhaps she’s staying at her parents’ house in Charlottetown instead.’

‘Perhaps she is.’

‘She might prefer that for _obvious_ reasons,’ Diana went on in a kind of shyly insinuating tone which made Anne look up sharply, an awful uneasiness settling in the depths of her stomach. ‘Although in _that_ case, I doubt she would take the trouble of such a long journey at all, and honestly he oughtn’t have to either.’

Anne’s hands clenched themselves so tightly in her lap her nails dug deep into the soft skin of the inside of her palms.

‘What—Diana, just what do you mean?’ she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as completely inane as she felt asking the question. And yet she had to ask it. She had to hear it stated out loud, plainly and unequivocally.

Diana giggled. ‘Why, Anne, don’t look so shocked. After all, they are married, aren’t they, and we both know what that _entails_. I’ll bet you ten to one she’s pregnant already. It usually doesn’t take long with young couples such as they are.’

Anne pressed her lips together and looked determinedly away from Diana and out of the window.

All things considered, she rather wished she’d never been born.

***

Anne felt like a total simpleton for not having thought earlier about the reason Diana had suggested for Winifred’s absence at Gilbert’s side. Now it seemed to her that it _must_ be just as her friend had said – Winnie _was_ pregnant, and was either staying at her parents’ house or else had remained in Europe, preparing for the arrival of her baby.

 _Gilbert’s_ _baby_.

The idea hardly bore thinking about, and yet by the time they had arrived at Aunt Jo’s Anne had become so obsessed by it she pleaded headache and, retreating into the privacy of the bedroom she always stayed in, she lay down and stared at the wall with unseeing, stinging eyes.

***

Gilbert had gone to Charlottetown on the morning train.

He wanted to visit Dr Ward, whom he had promised he would keep updated about his college career, and also to see Bash and Delphine before going back to Toronto, which he was to do early the following morning.

What he was trying most of all to do was to not think any more about Anne.

After all, she’d given him to understand clearly enough that she wanted him to leave her alone, and that was what he himself had promised to do in that letter he wrote her all those months ago. He had promised he wouldn’t badger her, that he wouldn’t expect her to return his feelings, that he would not, by implication, allude to the matter without her signal consent to do so.

And he had failed to keep that promise.

He supposed it had been a mistake to come back to Avonlea at all. It had only resulted in more misunderstandings between them; he had not been able _not_ to try to let Anne know he cared, and she had clearly resented the attempts.

It was in the early afternoon, as Gilbert was walking along the busy main street pavement and revolving these not exactly cheery thoughts in his mind, that he was stopped in his tracks by a vaguely familiar voice.

‘Gilbert! Hullo there!’

Cole McKenzie approached him with an outstretched hand. Gilbert shook it, trying his best to return the other’s cheerful smile.

‘I never knew you were in town?’ Cole said, frowning.

‘As a matter of fact, I wasn’t,’ Gilbert replied with a small shrug. ‘I mean, I came home to Avonlea for Christmas. I’m on my way back now.’

‘I see.’ Cole gave him a thoughtful, scrutinising look. ‘I say, is everything all right? I mean, you do look kind of run down.’

Gilbert forced a smile. ‘Sure. It’s just all the workload at the university.’

‘As though I heard Anne,’ Cole said, rolling his eyes. ‘She did look like a ghost this morning when she arrived, and I think she’s actually gone straight to bed like an eighty-year-old invalid. But then, if the two of you _will_ make it a point of honour to be at the top of your class in every single subject—‘

‘Anne’s here? In Charlottetown, I mean?’ Gilbert asked before he could stop himself.

‘Didn’t you know? She’s at Aunt Jo’s place with the other girls. Jo’s throwing them a special Christmas soiree tonight. Hasn’t Anne told you?’ Cole asked in a spuriously innocent, smooth tone.

‘I—I’ve not talked to her too much,’ Gilbert lied, hoping he sounded casual and knowing he didn’t.

Cole smirked.

‘I see. Still, perhaps you’d like to come along? You’re not leaving today, are you?’

‘Yes. I mean, no, I’m not.’

‘Then do come along. You know there are never enough dance partners for all the girls.’

‘Well—‘

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Cole cut in. ‘Got to rush along now. Tonight at seven. And if you want to secure a place on Anne’s dancing card, be punctual. I know for a fact half the Queen’s students have made a point of honour of dancing with her tonight. Come, if it’s only for the sake of watching them bend over backwards to get her to spare them a look out of those flashing eyes of hers.’

‘You know what, I think I will,’ Gilbert said with sudden resolution, feeling something coil unpleasantly in his stomach.

‘See you at seven, then. Evening clothes!’

***

By the time the moment had come for her to descend into the brilliantly illuminated ballroom, Anne had, under Diana’s merciless supervision, pulled herself together – more or less so.

‘Anne! Diana!’

She turned round and saw Roy Gardner advancing towards them with a smugly beaming face, looking extremely smart in a perfectly cut suit.

‘Why, you do look marvellous,’ he exclaimed, stanching up Anne’s hands and turning her round to make her face him fully. ‘You’re truly an ethereal creature, Anne Shirley. Every bit the elusive sylvan dryad, luring us hapless men away into the intangible world of shadows you inhabit.’

Anne realised that, if this was happening a year ago, she would be swept off her feet by such an invocation. Now, it merely made her wonder what he could possibly hope to obtain by talking such nonsense.

The thought made her smile.

And the smile gave Roy, who completely overlooked its ironic bitterness, quite the wrong idea of her state of mind.

‘Let’s dance, my fiery princess,’ he drawled, and before Anne could protest or tell him it was Diana he ought to dance with first he had swept her into the middle of the floor in a gallant waltz.

***

After two exhaustingly elaborate dances, Roy deposited Anne – at her own insistent request, for he himself was all for continuing to show off his skills in the waltzing line – at the edge of the room and set off in search of cold lemonade.

For a moment, she was content to simply stand there in a restful blankness of mind, leaning her back against a nearby marble pillar, deliciously cold to the touch.

Then, suddenly, she heard a name which caused her to snap her eyes wide open and strain her ears to make sure she could hear the words which followed through the buzz of the crowded ballroom.

‘. . . the Roses . . . the ones who went away to Paris early in the summer. The daughter, Winifred, a perfectly charming girl – she got married out there . . . Yes, that’s the one, and you know my sister-in-law lives out there as well, and she writes me she ran across the mother and the girl while shopping, and – would you believe it, Mrs Rose is about to become a grandmother! My sister-in-law says Winifred’s absolutely glowing with happiness . . .’

The voice – that of an elderly lady who, a widowed friend of Aunt Jo’s who had been invited to the soiree in the role of chaperone – faded away again, and Anne was left gazing unseeingly at the merrily swirling pairs in front of her.

She remembered once reading in a book something about the difference there was _between the expectation_ _of an unpleasant event –_ _however certain the mind may be told to consider it_ _– and certainty itself*_.

The difference between supposing Winnie might be going to be the mother of Gilbert’s baby because of Diana’s suggestion and actually hearing that supposition put in so many words as an indisputably ascertained fact was, indeed, staggering.

‘Your lemonade, my dryad.’

Anne looked up and saw Roy’s handsome face smiling down at her in an arrogantly inviting way, and felt something inside her mind go snap.

What was she waiting for? There was nothing holding her back from having her fill of fun by the side of this handsome, rich, amusing boy.

 _Nothing_.

She had been a fool until now – she had, in spite of everything, been hoping that somehow it would all turn out all right, and she would end up where she felt she belonged – by Gilbert’s side.

But now it had been made real, it had been put before her so vividly in the course of that elderly lady’s talk – the mental picture of Winifred waiting for him back in _their_ home, with _their_ baby growing under her heart.

It was torture.

She snatched the glass out of Roy’s hand, tossed it off and, putting it away on a nearly table, turned towards him with a smile so brilliant and carefree it made even him look a little taken aback.

‘Let’s dance, Roy!’ she said in a clear, silvery voice she hardly recognised as her own, taking him by the hand and drawing him out onto the floor. ‘Let’s dance until we drop, and then some more.’

‘Your wish is my command,’ Roy replied, laughingly, drawing her very close, closer than was strictly proper.

Anne made no move to oppose him, and could see the surprise, followed by satisfaction, which this made him feel register plainly on his face.

Tossing her head back, she smiled recklessly into his eyes, dark and mischievously enchanting, but so different from the steady, earnest intensity she knew now she would be searching for forever in every boy she met, and searching in vain.

Inside, she felt utterly hollow.

***

‘Diana?’

The girl turned round, her face flushed with laughter.

‘Gilbert?’ Her eyebrows soared up, and she threw a quick, suspicious glance beyond his shoulder, as though she was expecting to see someone there. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Cole invited me. Is Anne here? I need to talk to her.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Of course I’m alone,’ Gilbert replied somewhat irritably, Diana’s inquisitive gaze, which was now focused on his face, making him feel vaguely uncomfortable. ‘Diana, I’m rather in a rush, and I really need to see Anne for a moment. Could you help me look for her?’

‘If it’s Anne Shirley you’re talking about, she’s out back,’ said Jane Andrews in her usual matter-of-fact tone, suddenly emerging from the undifferentiated mass of people and standing next to Diana with her arms crossed over her chest. ‘Fancy seeing you here, Gilbert. I thought you were—‘

‘What do you mean, out back?’ Gilbert interrupted, a strange misgiving suddenly taking hold of him.

Jane shrugged. ‘I mean I saw her leave by the door into the back garden a few minutes ago.’

‘What? Alone?’ Diana asked with sudden concern in her voice before Gilbert could speak.

‘Of course not. Roy Gardner was with her.’

‘Oh,’ Diana said, uncertain. ‘I guess—I guess that’s all right then—‘

‘Well, I _suppose_ ,’ Jane cut in, rolling her eyes. ‘I mean, she’s been clearly enjoying his company so far this evening. Have you seen the way he was holding her during this one particularly romantic dance? If my mother saw a boy embrace me the way Roy did Anne, I would be grounded until I turned thirty.’

Diana looked as though she was not certain this was something to joke about, and the evident concern on her face only served to confirm a decision Gilbert knew he would have made anyway.

‘Well, I really need to see her, so I guess I’ll just go look for her,’ he said, doing what he could not to sound upset. ‘Thanks for the help, girls.’

As he turned away, he heard Jane giggle and say to Diana in an unmistakably meaningful tone,

‘I say, Di, shouldn’t we stop him? I hardly think Anne and Roy will thank him for the interruption—‘

It was all he could do to withstand the urge to tear out of the room at a run.

* this is Jane Austen or rather Elinor Dashwood upon hearing – or thinking she hears – the marriage of the man she loves to another girl confirmed by an impartial eye witness :D


	6. if I choose then I lose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ヅ)_/¯

When Roy kissed her for the first time, Anne did nothing to oppose him, merely letting out a small involuntary sigh at the underwhelming disillusionment of it all. Her uppermost sensation was that Roy’s lips were unpleasantly cold against her own. Was _this_ really something an entire anthology of poems had been written about?

But then, they were mostly poems written by men – perhaps _they_ enjoyed it.

Roy, in fact, did seem to be enjoying it.

Because he kissed her again, this time with less caution, and Anne felt fingers digging into the flesh below her ribs and realised he had sneaked his hand underneath her coat.

This did not feel right at all.

‘Roy, stop,’ she gasped, managing somehow to wrench her mouth away from his. ‘Let’s go back inside.’

He smiled a slow, supercilious smile and, letting go of her waist and holding both her wrists forcibly down instead to stop her from trying to push him away, he crashed his mouth to hers again, pressing her back roughly against the wall of the house.

‘Come on, Anne,’ he murmured, and the intimate feeling of his breath on her wet lips made her shiver in sudden revulsion. ‘We’re only just beginning. Don’t act like you don’t want it.’

And, to her utter horror, Anne felt him transfer both her wrists to one of his hands behind her back, while with the other one he reached up and began unbuttoning the collar of her coat.

‘Roy, let me go!’ she screeched with a fear in her voice she could not hide, tearing her head away from him and banging it painfully against the wall as she did so. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Stop it! Let me go!’

She heard him let out a small, malicious chuckle, his lips on her uncovered neck.

‘Come on, Anne, it’ll be fun—‘

‘Let me go— Roy, _stop it_ —‘

And then suddenly, so suddenly she could hardly realise what had happened at first, he and his horrid groping hands were jerked away from her, and there was a dull thud as his body was slammed into the wall next to her.

‘Didn’t you hear? She told you to stop!’

Pushing herself off the wall and taking a step back, Anne stared in disbelief at Gilbert’s face where is showed pale and furious in the surrounding darkness.

Before she could gather her senses enough to say anything, her attention was drawn to the spluttering sounds Roy was making, and she saw that Gilbert was holding him by the throat, his knuckles white with the force of the grip.

‘Gilbert, let him go!’ she cried, flinging herself forwards and tugging desperately at his arm. ‘You’re choking him! Let him go! Gilbert, _please_!’

His eyes flickered to her face, and their expression scared her, but she held his gaze pleadingly.

She could hardly believe this was really happening.

She felt Gilbert’s arm relax, and heard Roy take in a great, gulping breath.

‘Are you crazy, man? You could have killed me—‘

Gilbert snatched at the lapels of his coat at shook him forcibly, making him wince and avert his face.

‘Try doing a thing like this again, and I will,’ he said in a terrible, quietly empathetic voice. ‘Do you understand?’

Roy looked at him with a grimace.

‘I asked you a question—‘

‘Gilbert! Leave him alone!’ Anne demanded, taking hold of his arm once again as she saw that his grip on Roy’s coat was getting stronger. ‘It’s not worth it. Let’s go inside. Please.’

He didn’t look at her, and gave no sign that he even heard her, but in another moment he let go of the other man, pushing him away and down to the snow-covered ground.

‘Get out of my sight,’ he spat out, his voice cold and disgusted.

‘Come on,’ Anne urged, taking hold of Gilbert’s arm and tugging at it with all her might, wanting only to get him away from Roy before that idiot said something to provoke another fight.

***

She drew him back into the house and, through a side door situated right by the back entrance, into what she knew was a small, rarely used drawing-room.

Her main desire was to avoid a confrontation with any of their friends, since she knew she must be looking ghastly and the thought of having to explain why or of being asked about Roy’s whereabouts was enough to make her shiver with disgust and dread.

She also had a vague idea that she ought to let Gilbert know she was grateful for his help.

Accordingly, she closed the door and turned towards him with the intention of doing just that.

His whole person was radiating such fierce, unchecked rage that her words died on her lips, and she took an involuntary step away from him. She had never before seen anyone, least of all Gilbert – the ever-gentle, considerate, patient Gilbert – look so terrifyingly angry.

‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ he asked, his voice appallingly, unnaturally quiet and level. ‘And after the Billy and Josie situation at the fair, too? I really hoped that you would know better than this, but apparently you’re incapable of acting with the least bit of caution once you get carried away by that damned sentimentality of yours!’

Anne gaped. ‘I—‘ she stuttered uncertainly, and then sudden irritation flared up in her. What earthly right did he have to speak to her like this? _None_. ‘I don’t think I want to talk about this, Gilbert,’ she proceeded coolly, looking away. ‘I’m honestly grateful for your help, but I also hope you realise how—how improper and unnecessarily rude is the manner in which you’ve spoken to me just now. I think you had better go now, before we quarrel again.’

There was a moment of awful silence, and she really thought he was going to leave.

Then she felt his hand touch her arm.

‘Anne.’

She shook her head, swallowing hard and keeping her face averted.

Placing his hand against her cheek, Gilbert gently forced her to look up into his eyes. The anger was still there, but already tempered by anxiety and even something like contrition.

Which, of course, was so much worse.

‘Anne,’ he began quietly, and her heart gave a treacherous lurch at the tenderness underlying his voice, ‘it’s just that I—I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said with forced unconcern. ‘Besides, you’re not responsible for my safety.’

‘Anne,’ he cut in, abrupt and intense. ‘You must know – surely you know that nothing – _no one_ – really matters to me but you? I—‘

Anne looked up with such patent horror at that that Gilbert fell silent, and his hand dropped to from her face to his side.

‘You oughtn’t to say such things,’ she said hoarsely, her throat having gone painfully dry. ‘It’s not right, and you know it.’

A wry, hopeless smile flickered across his face. ‘Well, it’s true all the same, whether it’s right or not. I know I’ve promised not to bother you, but I just—I just have to say it. Just this once. I love you, Anne, and I’ve only ever loved you. There can never be anyone else for me.’

At that, Anne’s self control broke down completely.

‘Gilbert, please, just stop it!’ she demanded shrilly, pressing her fingers to her temples in an attempt to stop her head from splitting in half as it seemed to threaten to do any moment now. ‘Have you got no mercy at all? How _can_ you—And what about the baby?’ she finished somewhat hysterically, looking back up at him with darkened, stormy eyes.

Gilbert looked uncomprehending. Then blank. Then utterly bewildered.

‘Wha— _what baby_?’ he stammered, his eyes scanning her face in a kind of frantic inquiry.

Tears were fairly streaming down Anne’s face by down, but her voice was challenging, accusing. ‘ _Your_ baby, you heartless, selfish fool! Doesn’t it matter to you at all?’

He merely stared back at her, speechless.

‘Because it’s clear your wife does _not_ – otherwise you wouldn’t be carrying on behind her back like this!’ she cried, her emotions overpowering her completely in the face of his prolonged silence. She stabbed him in the chest with an accusing finger. ‘And all the while she’s awaiting the birth of your child, looking forward to your return home to her!’

Quickly, Gilbert grabbed hold of her hand and stilled it in his own.

‘Anne,’ he said, slowly and with audible difficulty. ‘Just what are you talking about?’

‘Your wife Winifred!’ Anne cried in utter exasperation, wondering wildly whether it was he or she that were going insane. ‘With whom you’ve been living in Paris for the past four months, and who is pregnant with your baby!’


	7. and I'm on my way to believe it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and here it comes, finally! :D

As Gilbert took her words in, a sudden wave of exhilarated relief washed over him. Everything fell into place – all of Anne’s spells of coldness towards him, her sudden outbursts of anger, her resentment of his concern for her safety.

It was all a giant misunderstanding. He had no idea how it could have come about – how she could have lived in such enormous error for so long; but at least now he knew about it he could put the record straight, and hope that that would stop her seeing him in such unfavourable light.

He tightened his hold on Anne’s hand, letting out a short, relieved laugh. It was not – or at least not only – because she didn’t care that she’d persisted in rejecting his tentative advances so decisively!

At the sound of his laughter, Anne’s eyes went even wider, and an angry blush flooded her cheeks.

‘How _can_ you—Gilbert, I simply cannot believe you’ve got it in you to behave like this!’ she exclaimed heatedly, her voice pained. ‘I’ve always thought you were such a fundamentally _decent_ person—‘

‘Anne,’ he interrupted, clasping her other hand as well and looking straight into her bewildered eyes. ‘Anne, you’ve got it all wrong. I am _not_ married to Winnie. I don’t get how—I mean, I’ve told you I wasn’t going to propose to her. I—‘

He paused, for he suddenly realised that Anne’s face had gone white to the lips.

‘I—I think I need to sit down,’ she said, looking round vaguely, her voice barely above a whisper.

‘Sure,’ he said quickly, putting his arm around her waist as he led her to a nearby sofa.

***

Anne let him help her sit down, and, shutting her eyes, leaned back against the cushions and tried to, somehow, gather her wits together enough to be able to take in what he had just said.

‘Anne,’ Gilbert’s voice sounded close by, audibly concerned. ‘Anne? Please, look at me. Say something. Anne?’

She opened her eyes slowly. His face, pale and drawn with worry, hovered in front of her.

‘I’ll go ask Diana to come—‘

‘No,’ Anne cut in, impulsively reaching out to catch at his hand and stop him from getting up. ‘Gilbert,’ she went on slowly, hoarsely, frowning as she sat up a little and tried to focus her eyes on his. ‘Can you—could you please repeat what you’ve just said? I—I need to know it’s not just a cruel joke.’

‘A joke?’ he repeated incredulously, his fingers threading themselves through hers as he gazed at her with mingled confusion and hopefulness. ‘Of course it’s not a joke. I never proposed to Winnie. I wrote you a letter in which I told you I wouldn’t ever get married unless—unless it was to _you_.’

With a sharp intake of breath, Anne turned away, pursing her lips into a tight line.

The letter. The bloody letter, which she, complete fool that she was, destroyed so recklessly, and pieced back into a totally inaccurate message, and then lived through so much misery through her own, and no one else’s, fault—

It was simply too much.

‘Anne, don’t cry,’ Gilbert said softly, and she felt his fingers touch her cheek tentatively. She turned towards him, her face all screwed up with the tears she was unsuccessfully trying to hold back.

‘I—I tore that letter up,’ she faltered out, closing her eyes and involuntarily leaning a little into the comforting warmth of his palm where it rested against the side of her face. ‘I was so angry with you for not replying personally to the one I wrote you, I simply tore it into shreds, and then when I tried to piece it together I—‘

‘ _The one you wrote me_? What are you talking about?’

She opened her eyes. Gilbert was staring at her with an inquiring frown, his whole body tense and on the alert.

‘About the letter _I_ wrote _you_ ,’ Anne said between two rather disgraceful sobs. ‘The day after the exam. I—I came to see you, but you weren’t home, so I wrote – _it_ – and left it on the kitchen table. You _must_ _have_ seen it.’

He shook his head. ‘Anne, I swear to you there was no letter there. Perhaps—I don’t know, perhaps it fell to the floor and Bash’s mother swept it up, or—‘ he paused, and then looked at her intensely, questioningly. ‘Well, anyway, what _was_ it about?’

Anne’s cheeks went scarlet. Holding herself away from his touch, she said stiffly, looking down,

‘It—it had to do with—with what you asked me that night. I realised I had been wrong, and I wanted to let you know that before it was too late— And then the next day everybody was talking about your engagement to Winifred, and I—‘ she covered her face with her hands, unable to stand the way Gilbert’s gaze was burning into her skin. ‘All these months, I thought of you with such bitterness, because I couldn’t forgive you for disregarding my feelings so completely— But I knew I had no right to stand in the way of your dreams—‘

She felt his fingers grab her wrists and, delicately, he forced her to take her hands away from her face.

The tenderness and longing with which he was looking at her made her fall silent, merely gazing back with wide-open eyes and trembling lips.

‘Anne,’ he began, his hands closing over hers in a warm, secure grasp, his face open and vulnerable before her. ‘I only have _one_ dream. And it’s to make myself, through work and honest effort, into someone good enough for you to love. Nothing else matters to me.’

For a moment, Anne hardly knew who and where she was: the wave of happiness which rolled over her was so overwhelmingly strong it barely felt like happiness at all, and more like suffocating bewilderment.

‘But—‘ she burst out breathlessly, choking on her tears. ‘But Gilbert, you _are_ , and I _do_!’

An incredulous, uncertain smile wavered on his lips.

‘Do you really mean it, Anne?’ he asked somewhat shakily, his eyes expectant and yet just a little but wary, as though he was afraid to let himself believe too much too soon. ‘Is that—is _that_ what that letter said?’

The tumult of emotions which his proximity, the way he was looking at her, and – most of all – the fact that he had just confessed his love for her, and that there was nothing standing in the way of her reciprocating that love made it momentarily impossible for Anne to speak, and so she merely nodded, hoping her eyes would tell him what her lips could not.

Gilbert’s face cleared, the corners of his mouth quirked up.

His smile was so genuine Anne could not but reciprocate it, and, on an impulse of pure joy, she lifted one of his hands back up to her cheek and, closing her eyes and turning her face into it, just touched the inside of his palm with her lips.

Instantaneously, Gilbert put his other hand up to cup her face, and the next thing she knew was his lips touched hers, and it was everything, everything she’d thought, only minutes ago, she would never feel, and which she felt now with such vehemence she simply could not stop herself from deepening the tentative caress, her hands grasping at his collar as she leaned into him, giving in to her body’s desperate need to feel his body pressed flush against her own, a need she had had such a hell of a time fighting against these past few days.

When they finally broke off, he rested his forehead against hers, letting out a long-drawn-out, shaky breath.

‘What is it?’ Anne asked with a small, somewhat bashful laugh, reaching up to thread her fingers though his and bringing their joint hands down to rest in her lap.

The fact that she could do it, just like that, felt positively unreal.

Gilbert held himself away a little, and the look of unconcealed love and adoration which he gave her made Anne’s cheeks flush deeply, her entire body thrumming with the erratic beating of her pulse.

‘I just love you so much,’ he said simply, echoing her laughter. ‘I thought you’d never give me the chance to say it.’

Anne’s heart felt so full of joy it might burst, but she rolled her eyes in mock exasperation.

‘You’re hardly the one to complain. _I_ thought you were married, remember? And also that you’re determined to make me your illicit lover, or something melodramatic like that. In fact, I was beginning to think you’re thoroughly depraved, and also that I would have no choice but to end up reduced to the same level. That’s why I let Roy take me out to that garden,’ she went on, looking down and away from Gilbert’s face. ‘I thought I had nothing left to lose. And then I hated it so, and he wouldn’t stop when I asked him to— But it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t encouraged him, and I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t found us, and I’m—I’m so _terribly_ ashamed of myself—You are right, I should have known better, but I just—I thought you were out of reach forever, and I felt so _desperate_ —‘

‘Hey,’ Gilbert said softly, cupping her chin and making her tilt her face up so that she would look him in the eyes. To her relief, he didn’t look angry or upset, merely a little sad and embarrassed as well. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Anne. If anyone is to blame, it’s me. This whole mess would never have come about if only I had been a little more patient—‘

Anne let out a small, embarrassed giggle, making him smile as well. ‘ _More_ patient? Gilbert, when I remember how often I was downright rude to you when you did nothing to deserve it—‘

‘Still, the right thing to have done back in the summer would have been to go and talk to you calmly and soberly, the day after the exams,’ he countered stubbornly. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever stop being angry with myself for the way I bungled things up that night.’

‘So you _do_ realise I was drunk out of my head?’ Anne asked, smiling. ‘Still, I must admit the way you were talking in riddles was a bit exasperating. I really thought that what you wanted was for me to give you a permission to propose to Winifred.’

Gilbert laughed, but there was a trace of uneasiness in his eyes. ‘I don’t know how I could ever even consider being with Winnie,’ he said, looking down at their joint hands. ‘When it actually came to the point I knew that I could never propose to her. The day before I went to see her you were so constantly on my mind I thought I was going to go crazy.’

‘And meanwhile _I_ managed to work myself into such a state I believe that if I saw you I would have thrown myself at you before you even had a chance to say anything,’ she said jokingly, and he looked up with a smirk.

‘Would you now?’ he drawled teasingly, lifting an eyebrow.

Anne shrugged, pretending indifference, and at that Gilbert leant in and gave her a quick but nonetheless passionate kiss which left her gasping.

‘Like this?’ he teased, and she giggled, blushing. ‘And I did come to see you,’ he reminded her more soberly. ‘But you weren’t there. That’s why I wrote you a letter—‘

‘Don’t remind me about it,’ she interrupted with a playful grimace, and he smiled. ‘If only I hadn’t been such a spiteful goose— I used to think letters were ever so romantical, but now I know I shall always despise writing them. They are far too easily destructed, and not at all to be relied on in emergencies. I shall never write one again if I can possibly help it.’

Gilbert’s face fell in mockingly exaggerated disappointment. ‘Well, and here I was, naively hoping I could count on getting a lengthy epistle from you at least once a week—‘

Anne, who, in the flush of her new-found happiness, had forgotten all about the physical distance which near future would once again put between them, went pale with the recollection of that fact.

‘Of course,’ she said quietly, looking away and doing what she could not to give in to the overwhelming sadness which threatened her with a fresh access of tears. ‘Of course. You’re going away to Toronto. I forgot for a second. Of course I’ll write to you. When are you leaving?’

‘Tomorrow. In the morning.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then Gilbert reached out and stroked her cheek with a delicate, tender gesture, and she looked up, blinking away those frustrating tears that _would_ keep welling up.

He gave her a small, determinedly reassuring smile. ‘You know I wish we didn’t have to be so far apart, too,’ he said, and the suppressed pain in his voice belied his expression and testified to the truthfulness of his words. ‘But remember I’ll come home again for Easter. That’s not really all that long to wait.’

‘It’s a _forever_ to wait,’ Anne said sharply, and then winced as she realised she was doing what she’d always thought she’d never stoop to doing: resenting a loved person’s choice simply because it incommoded herself. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so bitter,’ she added, giving him a smile which she strove to make look genuine. ‘After all, it’s your future you’re working for.’

‘Our future,’ Gilbert amended, looking so sweetly bashful that Anne could not help a small, wondering laugh, and in response he drew her closer for another kiss.

‘Do you remember that morning Josie brought back the take-notice board?’ she asked when they finally broke off, and she sat nestled against his chest with his arms wound round her waist.

‘Do I?’ he chuckled. ‘A blow like the one you dealt me that day is not easily forgotten, you know. I thought my moment had finally come, and then you went and mentioned Ruby, and I thought I was going to dash my head to pieces against the nearest wall.’

Anne gave a deprecating snort. ‘You did not look it. _I_ , on the other hand, was scared out of my wits. I could not help thinking that it did look like you really liked me, and I thought I was delusional.’

‘Well, you weren’t.’

‘Well, I know that now,’ she countered, rolling her eyes, and he laughed and kissed the top of her head. ‘Still,’ she added teasingly, ‘you might have posted _something_. I kept hoping you would, and you kept disappointing me.’

Gilbert sat up at that, forcing her to turn and face him, and to her instantaneous shame Anne saw that he looked genuinely worried.

‘Are you serious?’ he asked, his eyes searching hers anxiously. ‘I—I just assumed that it would only make you angry, my proclaiming my feelings for everyone to see—‘

‘Gilbert, wait,’ she interrupted, her conscience making it impossible to let him go on like this, like he was the only one at fault. ‘Of course I’m not serious. I was just teasing. Of course it would be horrible to have something so private out there for Billy to sneer at and the girls to giggle about.’

‘Oh, good,’ he said, letting out a sigh of relief. Then he smiled with renewed playfulness. ‘Besides, the one time I actually wrote you something romantic you did not appreciate it in the least.’

It was Anne’s turn to look guilty.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, reaching up to put her hand up to his cheek. He took it in his own and kissed it. ‘Will you tell me what that letter said? Please?’

Gilbert’s cheeks flushed slightly. ‘What did _yours_ say?’ he asked evasively.

‘That I love you,’ Anne replied simply, shrugging. ‘And would you please return my pen.’

He stared a little, and then laughed self-consciously. ‘Well, mine was a little more circumlocutory than that. If I recall correctly, I called you the keeper of the keys to my heart. And other nonsense like that.’

‘Oh Gil,’ she sighed, taking his face between her hands and leaning in for a light, gentle kiss. ‘It's not nonsense. It’s absolutely beautiful. I never knew you could be so romantical.’

He smiled against her lips.

‘Want me to prove it in my very next letter?’

Another kiss was all the answer he got.


End file.
